Survivor: China - "I Lost Two Hands And Possibly A Shoulder!"Review

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More brawls, more nudity blurs and more tension.

By Eric Goldman

Whew! It's rarely fun to see a team just continually lose on Survivor -- okay, it was a little fun on Palau, but still -- so it was nice to see Zhan Hu finally come back victorious on this week's episode.

However, while Zhan Hu finally won, things still weren't harmonious at the tribe. The main problem continued to be Dave, who instantly set out to make his tribemates regret keeping him over Ashley. Dave seems downright insufferable, as he exerts far more energy than is necessary and speaks to his tribe in the most condescending manner possible. He keeps refusing to listen to their suggestions, while making himself exhausted by working so hard at unnecessary tasks that it seems he's simply desperate to prove himself. It also seems ever more likely that Ashley was right that she'll be seeing him soon, since he's alienating himself from the tribe at an alarming rate.

But things were pretty touchy at Fei Long too, and all of the bad vibes seemed to be caused by guys. James, who'd seemed pretty quiet and easy going until now, had a squabble with Aaron about crabs of all things. And Jean-Robert added "disgusting" to the things his tribemates think of him, on top of lazy, as he groped at the women in the middle of the night, claiming it was for warmth. Attitude aside, Courtney is rapidly making me enjoy her presence each week with her snark, which here was aimed at herself, as she said "Like I'm keeping anyone warm! I weigh seven pounds. I can't keep myself warm!" It's funny because it's true Courtney.

The reward challenge this week should have been called Deja vu, because for the second week in a row, it was all about grabbing, pulling and smashing into the other tribe, except this time there was water instead of mud. In men versus women challenges, each team tried to knock the others off into the water, and the men were sort of evenly matched&#Array; that is except for James being there of course, as he could never be knocked in the water, even though a scrappy Erik impressed by staying in far longer than you'd expect with both James and Jean-Robert pushing at him. Pardon the pun, but Dave meanwhile pulled a dick move by going into the challenge naked, apparently hoping it would somehow stop the other team from giving their all. It was crass when Richard pulled it during a challenge in All-Stars and it still is. It didn't matter though, as Dave was knocked in each time, and it came down to the Zhan Hu women being able to beat the Fei Long women every time they faced off that gave Zhan Hu their first victory.

Leslie being the one picked to join Zhan Hu for awhile made strategic sense, and to be fair, so did Leslie's decision to share with Jaime the clues for the hidden immunity idol. One would hope Jaime will figure out where the idol is hidden at camp before the cameraman finally just rams the camera directly into the idol, now that the shots of it in each camp are getting to "look, look, it's right here above their heads" point. Meanwhile Leslie quickly lost those strategy points by being the person who blabs way too much info to the enemy tribe about her tribe's politics, and then worse, tells her tribe she did so, giving them ammunition to oust her!

The second immunity challenge was a bizarre and entertaining spectacle. Team members had to chop down puzzle piece clues with a machete, and Courtney may very well have won the crown for Worst Survivor Performance Ever During a Challenge thanks to her complete lack of any strength at all causing her to pathetically try to chop at the binds holding her piece for what seemed to be, oh, ten hours, allowing Zhan Hu to gain an absolutely massive lead. On top of this, the Survivor editors were apparently bored this week and decided to do something artsy - each time someone successfully chopped down a puzzle piece, the image of the person would freeze and we'd zoom in on the frozen picture, like something out of a 1970s movie. It was a very strange stylistic change of pace for the show, but it was so goofy and amusing, I kind of loved it.

With Fei Long losing their first immunity challenge, it became about the choice between getting rid of a physical weak link -- Leslie or Courtney -- or the utterly unlikable Jean-Robert. Courtney and Todd were all about going after Jean-Robert, having heard he and James openly discuss getting rid of Courtney, complete with Jean-Robert calling out James having a crush on Courtney by saying it would be great for James if he could get "A million dollars and some ass." In the end though, it was about keeping the tribe physically strong that prevailed, and Leslie - who'd made things worse by talking up how much she'd gotten along with Zhan Hu - was sent home.

Though watching the game play is as interesting as ever, the big problem so far with this season of Survivor is the lack of any strong personas who are particularly likable or easy to root for to actually win. Some of the women are still very vague - I don't have enough of a handle on Sherea, Jaime or Amanda to know what to think yet, and if it weren't for her mullet and one of the most unfortunate blurs the show's had to do yet (as she fell with her legs wide open), you'd barely know a woman named Denise was on this show. Does she ever talk? As for the guys, they're a pretty smarmy, arrogant bunch, with the possible exceptions of Erik and Frosti, but they too have barely been featured, outside of some nice moments in the challenges. Come on Survivor, paint me a better picture here!